A MODEL CREAMERY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 8902, 19 September 1889, Page 6

A MODEL CREAMERY.

The following is from a report of the 4 doings of a Dairy Conference in Scotland, 1 The members visited Dunragit Creamery, and the description given is the one supplied to a leading Home journal:— This establishment is situated near Dunragit Station, a few miles from Stranaer, and was opened in 1882 by Messrs Andrew Clement and Robert M’Cracken, who, in 1884, transferred it to a Company, which has a capital of 15,000, and carries on the manufacture of butter, cheese, margarine, &c. The quantity of milk handled daily is about 3500 gallons. In the busy season it rises to 4500 gallons a day. This is almost entirely delivered at the creamery by farmers' carts, only a small quantity being sent by rail. The milk when received is weighed in two large cans placed on weighing machines, from which it passes to storage vats of 2500 gallons capacity. From these the milk runs to the warmers placed above the separators, five of which are in use—two of them being Danish separators, two Do Laval’s, and one a Victoria. From the separators the cream passes down a run to the cream room, where, after being refrigerated, it is stored in ripening vats till ready for churning. The churn-room, which is on a lower level, contains, two large churns of a capacity of 800 gallons each—one is a Blanchard, the other an old-fashioned Scotch churn. The latter is preferred, and is the one in general use. Close to the churns are the butter working and packing apartments, where the butter is worked on a marble butter worker, and made up imo prints and rolls for the market in an entirely fresh state. On leaving the separators part of the skim milk is scalded and cooled for transit to the cities, and the remainder passes by gravitation to the cheese-making room, which is situated near the butter rooms. Here it is received in three vats, each capable of holding 600 gallons. Enriched skim cheese are made of colour and and shapes to suit various markets. The apparatus in use for this purpose is the lactoleofract, by means of which lilt of the finest oleomargarine, or beef fat. is added in the form of cream to every tor gallons of milk, after which cheesemaking is carried on in much the usual way. The curd, on removal from the vats, is pressed in tinned steel hoops in four hoiizonttil gang presses in the adjoining room. Immediately above these two rooms is the cheese store with shelving to accommodate about 1400 cheese. The whey and buttermilk are used to feed pigs, of which the Company has about3oo. Breeding sowsand young pigs are kept at the Company’s farm of West Challoch, where a herd of sixty Ayrshire cows are also kept; while fattening pigs are accommodated in the piggeries situated south of the railway line. The margarine department consists of an oleo store and melting-room on the upper floor; with churning and working-rooms, salt store and despatch-room on the lower floor. The melting-room contains five vats, each of a capacity of 30cwt, below which are three churns, two of them capable of turning outSOcwt of margarine each. The workingroom is furnished with three pairs of largo fluted rollers, which do the work usually assigned to the butter worker. A detached building is a store for empty packages. <• large stock of which has to be kept to suit the exigencies of the margarine trade. Above the level of the buildings is a large reservoir for storage of 20,000 gallons ot water, which is pumped from a cold spring close to the railway. This reservoir is of strong masonry, lined inside with cement work, arched over and covered with a layer of clay and two feet of soil. The water is not only drawn from a good cold spring, bat is further cooled by means ot . freezing machine, which during suuuno, is kept at work in the engine room. Tl ■: whole of the establishment was thrown open, but some disappointment was felt that none of the processes of manufacture were going on; the actual work being done was the stamping and making of half-'i pounds of butter and the packing of * margarine.